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Kouba

KOUBA ABALAK CAMMING DEVICE | SET OF 6 PASSIVE CAMS

£75.00
£75.00
Sale Sold out
Colour

A unique design of passive protection, designed to ‘cam’ into breaks and pockets with no moving parts. Affixed to a durable steel wire, Abalaks have a narrow V-shaped head and come in a variety of sizes, ideal for protecting horizontal cracks and small pockets, particularly quarry shot-holes, where the traditional cam does not fit.

Abalaks can be placed like a typical nut, however come into their own when used as a passive camming device. The Abalak set comes in anodised and non-anodised options and are colour coded on their stem for easy recognition of size.

Key Features

  • Unique Design - Offers solid, passive protection in horizontal cracks or pockets
  • Large Range of Sizes - Compatible for use in a wide variety of situations 
  • Anodised Option - Quickly identifiable of your rack or harness
  • Durable - A hard aluminium alloy construction with a strong steel wire 
  • Manufactured in Europe - Meets the CE and EN standard for climbing equipment
  • Full set of Kouba Abalaks covers sizes from 1 to 6

Specification

Abalaks, as with all Kouba climbing equipment, are CE 1015 and EN 12270 certified with the relevant certifications. Kouba have been making active and passive rock climbing protection for 20 years in Czech Republic, specialising in nuts, cams and abalaks.

Shipping

We offer tracked shipping with either Evri or DPD at the checkout, you will receive a tracking number once we have dispatched your order. Typically, orders placed before 4pm are delivered within 2-3 business days.

For full information, please visit our full shipping policy.

Customer Reviews

Based on 6 reviews
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I love tricams but not these ones

I love using tricams because they are awesome with holes and horizontal cracks. My first one is with a sling instead of wired and that works really well. I have been warned with the wired tricams but thought I would still give these a try. May be I should have listened.

So far, I have only used the green one and it does work OK as a tricam. I could not use the smaller ones (white, yellow, orange) due the stiffness of the wires making it impossible to place them properly. The larger ones are probably OK but I have not come across a suitable crack for them yet.

In the description, it says they can be placed as nuts. This is not true. Again due to the stiff wire, they could only be used as tricams. Also, when deployed, the wire could spring against the rock and I wonder if the wire would be damaged with repeated use. Some of the wire holes have very rough edges that could cut the finger so not impress with the craftsmanship. But overall, the whole design is being let down by the stiff wires. Shame.

Updates after 6 months:

I still can't use the small ones (while, yellow) but I have used all the others, mostly for making anchors at the top of the crags. They fit weirdly shaped cracks at the top really well when nothing else would fit and I love them for that. Using them has really speeded up the process of making anchors for me. For this reason alone, I will definitely recommand these tricams.

I had one time needed to use a tricam during climbing. It was a short traverse with a horizontal crack. In this case, the sling tricam could not be placed securely but the wired version did. What I did not expect was that it would walk into the crack as I climb past it. And my second could not get it out (but luckily I could). So I probably need more practice for using them mid-route.

Thanks for the feedback! These aren't for everyone and i'm sorry that they didn't meet your expectations.
Here are some thoughts in response to your review:

- Wired triams are better in some ways than slung tricams and worse in others. For example, when using them for mixed climbing the sprung wire makes it easier to place with gloves on. The wire also makes them slightly easier to place one-handed. However, it sounds like you found them harder to place, which is common feedback. Everyones experiance will vary!

- The wired tricams have a steep learning curve. They aren't quite like any other gear, and often leaders find them fiddly to place initially and seconds find them hard to get out. if you're reading this review, do be aware of this! There is a bit of a knack to placing these.

- The small ones do need some use before they become easy to use. This is a fair critisim and I will bring this up with Kouba and see if they can improve things in future batches.

Thanks again for your feedback. I would love to hear if you continued to use them, and if you have any other thoughts on these.

- Rob

M
Melanie Bonney
Kouba cams

These are fantastic, used yesterday at Brimham Rocks

J
Jim Robertson
Sgurr Service

Great service, product and price from Sgurr.

F
Francis Thomas
Nifty kit

I wanted to try these out as a wired alternative to tricams. I've used them twice now, in horizontal breaks on gritstone. They are quicker to place than tricams, so good for a leader. My second found them slightly harder to remove, but only marginally. Great service from Sgùrr.

F
Fiona Reid
Esoteric but very useful

It's too cold for trad right now but I've had a play with the Abalaks at the beach and they seem to work rather well in places where no other gear will work. Looking forward to trying them once temperatures get warm enough to rock climb again.

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PRODUCT DETAILS


Nut Size

Weight

Strength

Colour (anodised)

Range (min - max)

1

20 g

6 kN

White 

18 - 20 mm

2

20 g

6 kN

Yellow

19 - 26 mm

3

40 g

10 kN

Orange

21 - 32 mm

4

50 g

10 kN

Green

24 - 42 mm

5

80 g

14 kN

Blue

27 - 53.5 mm

6

110 g

14 kN

Red

31 - 63.5 mm